Docker Q&A for Windows Users

I’m a Windows guy. I’ve spent the better part of the past fifteen years on Windows laptops and servers. That fact probably hurts my geek cred, but hey, gotta be honest. Either way, it really seems that the coolest emerging technologies are happening in an open-source world on Linux. So how does someone from a Windows world make sense of something like Docker, for example? When I first dug into it a year ago, I had a bunch of questions. As I learned more – and started using it a bit – a number of things became clearer. Below is my take on what someone new to Docker might want to know. If for some reason you think one of my answers below is wrong, tell me!

Q: Is Docker just another means of virtualization?

A: Somewhat. It’s primarily a way to run lightweight containers that isolate processes. That process may be a web app, database, load balancer, or pretty much anything. Containers don’t do as much as a virtual machine, but that also makes them a lot easier to use (and destroy!). You may hear containers referred to as “operating system virtualization” which is fair since each container gets its own user space in the host OS.

 

Q: How do Docker containers differ from a virtual machine?

A: A virtual machine in Hyper-V or VMware virtualizes an entire guest operating system. Take a physical server, and share its resources among a bunch of virtualized servers running any operating system. With Docker, you’re isolating a process and its dependencies. A container shares the Linux kernel with other containers on the host machine. Instead of running a full copy of an OS like virtual machines do, containers pretty much consist of a directory! The container has everything you need for the application to run.

 

Q: Does Docker == container?

A: No, Docker refers to the daemon which builds, runs, and distributes the containers.

 

Q: Can I make something like Docker work natively on Windows?

A: Not really. While Microsoft is promising some sort of Docker support in the next version of Windows Server (due in 2016), they’ll have to introduce some significant changes to have truly native Docker support. Docker is written in Go and relies on a few core Linux technologies:

• Namespaces provide process isolation. Windows doesn’t really have something that maps directly to this.
• Control Groups are used to set up resource limits and constraints to help containers responsibly use host resources. Windows doesn’t have a way to limit resource consumption by a particular service.
• Union File Systems are file systems created by establishing layers. Docker uses these layers for container changes, and to establish a read/write file system. Not something you see in a Windows environment.
• Container Format that combines the previous components. Default format is libcontainer, but LXC is also supported.

 

Q: What’s in a Docker image?

A: Images are read-only templates that are used to create Docker containers. You can create your own images, update existing ones, or download from a registry like the Docker Hub. Downloaded images are stored by Docker on the host and can be easily used to create new containers. When you change an image, a new layer is built and added. This makes it simpler to distribute changes without distributing the whole image.

 

Q: How big are Docker images?

A: Base images could be as small as a few hundreds megabytes, to a few gigabytes. Image updates may be much smaller, but also include any (new) dependencies, that can cause the overall container size to grow more than expected.

 

Q: What’s the portability story with Docker?

A: Unlike virtual machines that require a particular hypervisor and are often quite large, containers run anywhere that Linux runs, and can be quickly built from small images.

 

Q: Does Docker run on Windows?

A: Somewhat. Developers who want to run Docker on Windows have to install a simple VM to get the necessary Linux-features. The Boot2Docker app gets this VM installed.

 

Q: Can I run more than one process in a Docker container?

A: While possible, yes (via a supervisor), the Docker team really believes that you should have a single process per container.

 

Q: Is a Dockerized app portable to any Linux host?

A: Ideally, yes. For example, a developer can start up an Ubuntu Docker image on a Red Hat host machine. However, issues can still arise if tools are dependent on kernel features that don’t exist on the host.

 

Q: How is data managed in a Dockerized app?

A: When you exit a container, the read-write file layer goes away. If you save the container as a new image, then the data is retained. Docker encourages developers to use data volumes and data volume containers to persist information. There’s a good StackOverflow question on this topic. Other solutions like Flocker have popped up as well.

 

Q: Is there one flavor of Linux that runs Docker better than others?

A: I don’t believe so. There are Docker-centric Linux distributions like CoreOS, but you can also easily run Docker on distros like SUSE and Ubuntu. Note that you should definitely be running a recent version of whatever distro you choose.

 

Q: What type of software can run in a Docker container?

A: Really, anything that runs on Linux should be able to fit in a container.

 

Q: Do I need the cloud to run Docker?

A: Definitely not. You can run Docker on virtual machines (locally or in the cloud), physical machines (locally or in the cloud), or in Docker-centric services like the Amazon EC2 Container Service. Even Microsoft’s own Azure has declared itself to be “Docker friendly.”

 

Q: What related technologies should I care about?

A: This whole “microservices with containers” revolution means that developers should learn a host of new things. Windows developers may not be as familiar with container deployment tools (e.g. fleet) container orchestration tools (e.g. Kubernetes, or Docker’s own services) or service discovery tools (like Zookeeper or Consul), but now’s a good time to start reading up!

 

Q: Where it it still immature?

A: This is a fast moving technology, and I’d bet that Docker will be “enterprise-ready” long before enterprises are ready to commit to it. Security is a emerging area, and architectural best practices are still forming.

 

Q: Ok, you’ve convinced me to try it out. What’s an easy way to get started on Windows?

A: Download Vagrant, stand up an Ubuntu image, and get Docker installed. Pull an app from the growing Docker Hub and walk through the tutorials provided by Docker. Or, start watching this great new Pluralsight course. Also consider trying out something like Panamax to easily create multi-container apps.

 

Hope this helps demystify Docker a bit. I’m far from an expert with it, but it’s really one of these technologies that might be critical to know in the years ahead!